


Unwritten

by pinstripedJackalope



Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [10]
Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee, Unwind Dystology - Neal Shusterman
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Attempt at Humor, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dystopia, Emotional Hurt, Epilepsy, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Police Brutality, Running Away, Seizures, Sibling Bonding, Surveillance State, Teenage Drama, Teenage Rebellion, Teenagers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, also there's a mention of a car wreck in the first chapter, mentions of medical procedures, the setting of unwind is explained in the notes if you're unfamiliar, they will bond eventually, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24034795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: My name is Henry ‘Monty’ Montague.  Yes,thatHenry ‘Monty’ Montague.  And yes, the stories are all true.  I am, as they say, a deviant little shit.  Very ironic, really, because it’s being a deviant little shit that saved my life as I know it.It all began the morning I broke into my father’s desk in the downstairs study...
Relationships: Felicity Montague & Henry "Monty" Montague, Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton
Series: TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638925
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11
Collections: TGGTVAV AU Challenge Fics





	1. Dominoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldenthunderstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/gifts), [em_gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/gifts).
  * Inspired by [what he needs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812798) by [goldenthunderstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/pseuds/goldenthunderstorms). 



> I used Johanna’s pink pantsuit from goldenthunderstorms’ fic What He Needs this time around! It’ll come up in a later chapter, I promise. 
> 
> This story takes TGGTVAV's characters and puts them in the Unwind world. The events of the actual Unwind dystology happen in the future of this story. See the bottom notes for some things you might need to know if you haven’t read Unwind.

My name is Henry ‘Monty’ Montague. Yes, _that_ Henry ‘Monty’ Montague. And yes, the stories are all true. I am, as they say, a deviant little shit. Very ironic, really, because it’s being a deviant little shit that saved my life as I know it.

It all began the morning I broke into my father’s desk in the downstairs study. I was looking for some alcohol to sneak into school to share with my enemy-with-benefits, good old Dick Peele—I didn’t expect to find The Paperwork. I should have, I’m sure—honestly, what else was I going to find in my father’s study, of all places—but sometimes the universe unilaterally decides to go ‘ _hey, Monty, fuck you_ ’ and I’m just swept along for the ride. 

So there I was, all of sixteen years old, standing in front of my father’s desecrated desk with the form that was meant to end me as a person clutched tight in one hand. I was staring at the check-boxes on the front, specifically the ones that said ‘reason for unwinding’. My father—because of course the form was filled out in my father’s handwriting—had ticked off the box that said ‘ _behavioral issues_ ’. 

Now, look. Finding a form that cites ‘behavioral issues’ as reason to denounce me as a sack of harvestable parts _because of said behavioral issues_? That’s _hilarious_ , and that isn’t even the funniest thing about the situation. The funniest thing about the situation is that up until that very moment, I was convinced I wasn’t going to live to the age of twenty. I’d drink myself to death or ‘accidentally’ take all the meds in the cabinet or break all my bones in a car accident—whatever the cause, I was sure I’d be gone soon. But the moment I was faced with that damn piece of paper, and I realized that my parents had voluntarily agreed to have me medically dismembered, I felt, for the very first time in my entire goddamn life, the will to actually _stay alive_.

…That, dear friends, is what we in the business call _irony_.

And that isn’t all! Because my life is a comedy of errors, there was more irony to come, starting with the fact that in my panic to steal the car and go on the run I didn’t realize that my thirteen-year-old sister was sitting in the backseat reading while she waited for mom to drive her to school, which became the third domino to fall in the path that would eventually lead to the future that I’m living now, the future wherein I’m a wanted felon. It aaall started right here, when _looking for alcohol_ led to _finding The Paperwork_ which led to _trying to run away with my sister in the car_ , three dominoes that were quickly followed by _high speed car chase_ , _accidental airbag inflation_ , and _unintentionally taking my sister hostage fleeing from tranq bullets on the side of the road_.

…So, an average morning for me. 

Now look, before we get any farther here I just want to say that _in my defense_ , I didn’t think they would try to shoot her, too. All I was doing was hiding behind her and using her as a human shield so that I could, you know, escape the cops.

…Which sounds _very bad_ when you say it like that. God, this is hard. Who would have thought it would be this hard to tell the story where I became a wanted felon without coming off as a reckless asshole? Certainly not me.

Whatever. The point here is that I’d taken Felicity’s hand and was dragging her into the forest on the side of the highway amid a hail of (admittedly mostly harmless) bullets. Forget the Akron AWOL—he _wishes_ he was as cool as I was. I was doing this back in the days _before_ there was a National Juvenile Authority. The National Juvenile Authority was, in fact, created in response to _me_. At the time, it was all real cops all the time.

I’m getting a little off track here. Where was I? Oh, yeah, running into the untamed New York wilderness. With my stuck-up little sister. Who, first chance she got, wrestled herself free to demand, and I quote, “Just what the fuck are you _doing_?”

We’d lost the cops for now, but I was willing to bet they were on their way. I placed myself in front of her, planting my hands on her shoulders and walking backwards deeper into the trees even as she glared at me through the reading glasses that made her look like an old-school spinster. “This is going to come as a surprise, but mom and dad—they sent the cops after me,” I said, doing my best to soften the blow.

She rolled her eyes, clutching her bookbag to her chest. “Yeah, I know. Why won’t you turn yourself in? It isn’t as if they’re going to hurt you. They were shooting nonlethal rounds.”

I spluttered. “Weren’t going to _hurt me_? I was going to be _unwound_ , Felicity!”

“So?”

I came to a dead stop with my mouth agape, staring into her ferocious eyes. I had never thought of my sister as cold. Annoying, maybe. A little standoffish. Rude, definitely. But for her to—just—brush me off as if I wasn’t my own whole, entire person who deserved to _be_ a whole, entire person? I was blindsided. 

“ _So_?” I repeated. I couldn’t think of anything wittier or more profound to ask.

She crossed her arms, rolling her eyes as if I was the dimmest person she’d ever had the misfortune of interacting with. “Tell me. What’s so bad about being unwound? You won’t technically die—”

“I won’t technically—are you _listening_ to yourself?”

“—and it’s better than whatever you were doing to yourself, anyway—”

“Uncalled for.”

“—so I just—I don’t understand why you’d be against it!”

I stared at her. Then, all at once, I felt my face twist into a sneer. I raised both hands, releasing her with a snarl. “You think it’s so glamorous to get picked apart by vultures? You think we’d all be better off in pieces? Fine! Go tell mother you want to take my place on the chopping block! Good riddance, I say!”

She huffed, rolling her eyes again. Thirteen-year-olds, amirite? “God, Monty, you’re such a fucking _prick_. This is exactly why you should be unwound—at least in pieces you’d be doing some _good_ in the world.”

And… look. I wasn’t the best at managing my emotions back then. I’m still not. But aside from discovering The Paperwork, the unequivocally tangible proof that my parents were fine throwing me out with the garbage—aside from that, I had never, _ever_ felt as hurt as I did right then.

“May the universe grant me the relief of never seeing your face again,” I hissed, and turned away. 

I would have stalked off, too, and left her for the cops to find, if a voice I didn’t know hadn’t interrupted our sibling bonding right then and there with a small-sounding, “Excuse me?”

Felicity and I both turned, me with one foot raised, ready to kick my way to freedom should I be abruptly seized. Only it wasn’t a cop—it was just another kid, a tall, wiry one with umber skin and long-ish curly hair tied back in a messy ponytail. He had an instrument case on his back—a violin, maybe—and he was holding unsteadily to a tree.

“Who the heck are you?” I demanded. “Are you here to lure me in?”

“Please take this,” the kid said, without answering either question. He held out the violin. 

More stunned than anything, I took it. And then watched in shock as the kid’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the forest floor. His limbs stretched, and for a moment it looked like he was coming around—then, all of a sudden, he began to shake, to _convulse_.

“What—” I started, only to be shoved unceremoniously out of the way by Felicity, who was busy tucking her book bag under the kid’s head.

“Just go, Monty,” Felicity spit. “You don’t want to be here when the cops catch up.”

Which was all well and good, and exactly what I planned to do as soon as I set down the kid’s violin, which I did. I turned away with a huff, trying to block the sounds of gasps and grunts from my ears. 

…And yet. I couldn’t go far before I paused, counting seconds despite myself. Five, six, seven… eleven, twelve, thirteen, and finally, after what felt like a short eternity, the sounds stopped.

My shoulders untensed just slightly.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, my back still to Felicity.

“He had a seizure. He might need medical help.”

God, she sounded so calm. It made me want to scream. “And what are you planning to do, drag him back to the highway? All on your own? He’s like twice your size.”

“I was _going_ to wait here for the cops because _your_ stupid ass dragged me into the _middle of nowhere_!” she hissed.

I shook my head. Then I picked up the violin, swung it onto my back, and reached down for violin kid’s gangly knees. “Get his arms,” I said, hefting. He was quite a bit taller than me, but he was thin enough that it didn’t take much to haul his lower half up. “I saw a billboard for a town off the next highway exit, if we can get him there—”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Felicity said, a decent snarl curling her lip.

“Fine, stay here and get shot by the cops!” I said back, lowering violin kid down with a huff and throwing up my hands. I again went to walk away, fuming—only to be stopped a moment later as Felicity groaned aloud. 

“…I hate you, you know that?” she asked.

I cocked my head, smirking, one dimple cutting into my cheek, just to piss her off. “Hate you, too, dear sis,” I said. “Now do we have a truce?”

“…Fine.”

Which was how me and my little sister came to be crashing out from the wilderness—cops on our tail—carrying between the two of us an unconscious teenager, a bag of my sister’s dumb books, and a violin—into an all but abandoned pharmacy that was absolutely deserted except for one very old man who was sitting behind the counter reading a book. 

Not the greatest first impression I’ve ever made, but admittedly not the worst, either. 

And that, dear friends, was the start of my story.


	2. The Pharmacy Man

Have you ever stopped to think about where your journey began?

…Seriously, have you ever?

I do it every once in a while. You know, just to keep myself on my toes, remind myself how far I’ve come. From humble beginnings greatness rises, as they say—at least, I think that’s what they say. I’m not really what you’d call an ‘academic’. That’s more Felicity’s thing. All I know is that I grew up with all the world laid before me, served up on a silver platter, and it wasn’t until it was ripped away that I had any reason to actually, you know, _try_ to be a better person.

Anyway. Reflections on the possible nature of humanity and the acknowledgment of how far away the beginning of this story is to me now _aside_ , there is a reason I’m here to tell you this tale. That reason is a man only known as Pascal, aka the man in the pharmacy whose day me, Felicity, and violin boy were about to ruin. 

I’m sure you remember how we got there, but if not, let me recap real quick. Our dominoes looked like this so far:

1) Looking for alcohol.

2) Finding The Paperwork.

3) Trying to run away with my sister in the car.

4) High speed car chase.

5) Accidental airbag inflation.

6) Unintentionally taking my sister hostage fleeing from tranq bullets on the side of the road.

7) Running into violin kid in the wilderness.

8) Violin kid having a seizure.

And 9) Taking violin kid to dinky little pharmacy with the cops hot on our tails.

All well thought through and entirely sound decisions, clearly. Decisions which led me to…

10) Begging the pharmacist, who looked up and was staring at us with an unreadable expression on his face as we dumped the kid on the pharmacy’s linoleum floor, to hide us.

And without further ado…

“Hide you from what?” the man asked, carefully marking his place and setting his book aside.

Felicity, leaning over violin kid and tapping at his face, was too engrossed in pretending to be a doctor to answer. Looked like the pleasantries were up to me.

Which of course meant that the first words out of my mouth were, “The cops are after us.”

“After _you_ , you mean,” Felicity said, because of course she wasn’t too engrossed to _snark_ at me.

Peering nervously out the front window, I sighed. “Yes, fine, whatever. The cops are after me and this kid had a—a—what was it?”

“Seizure.”

“—a seizure. And you’re a pharmacy. So you can… help him. Us. All of us, really, but mostly him and—am I making any sense?”

The man blinked at me. I blinked back. Then, before anyone else could say or do anything, a cop car pulled into the empty parking lot, slowly creeping around toward the front of the pharmacy.

I yelped, ducking down behind some shelving and nearly knocking down a little magazine rack as I did. The kid was starting to come around, blinking and groaning while Felicity spoke calmly to him. I looked frantically over at the man behind the counter, my fingers tight on the shelf before me. “ _Please_ ,” I said.

The man began to stand, shaking his head. My stomach dropped down into the ninth circle of hell as he stepped to the side, toward the ancient telephone sitting on the pharmacy counter. I watched, dread building and building in my chest until I could hardly breathe around it. I was going to die. Except I wasn’t, I was going to suffer a fate _worse_ than death, one that was legal only because I _wouldn_ _’t_ be dead, I would be 99.44% alive, just in a hundred—little— _pieces_ —

—and then the man opened the divider between the front of the store and the back, gesturing us through.

I could hardly believe it. I almost didn’t. It wasn’t until Felicity cleared her throat that I jerked into motion, seizing violin kid’s gangly legs and dragging him back behind the counter with Felicity’s help.

We got there just in time. It was barely a moment later that the bell over the door jangled, just as soon followed by the sound of a walkie talkie buzzing. 

“You’re trouble,” the old man said to us from the corner of his mouth, eyes on the front of the shop.

“We’re _in_ trouble,” I corrected in a whisper. I then slapped a hand over my mouth to resist the urge to say anything else and give us all away.

The sound of boots on the linoleum rang softly around the quiet shop, the only other sound the walkie talkie crackling on and off. I had never heard such a weighty silence in my life. There wasn’t even music playing on tinny speakers, okay. It was footsteps and static and that was _it_. It was so silent that I felt like I could pinpoint the cop’s exact location in the room, like I was triangulating the echoes bouncing off the walls. 

He was walking along the front wall, now. And now he was peering down the rows of shelves as he crossed around the side. And now he was giving the little magazine rack a twirl. Getting closer and closer by the moment to the counter in the back, the counter behind which we had so haphazardly tucked ourselves away.

I breathed slowly through my nose, schooling myself into silence. It felt like every twitch of every muscle would be the one to expose me, the bastard that would rat me out. I was sweating like there was no tomorrow. I’ll be honest—I’ve been a lot of places I shouldn’t have been, and I’ve been pursued by a lot of people and/or animals intent on sniffing me out. On the roof of the science building at the high school, in the crawl space of our house hiding bottles of alcohol in the ducts, out in the trees behind the house with a girl with her panties around her ankles… I have no shortage of memories wherein I’m crouched just out of sight of the principal or my father or my father’s dogs. I’ve had to hide away and wait for some danger to pass more often than I can count. 

Still, no matter how many times I’ve done it nor how many close calls I’ve had, I have never in my life felt as terrified of being caught as I did then. And it _really_ didn’t help when violin boy moaned softly just beside me. 

I jumped and flinched, my heart hammering so loud I was sure it would give me away. God, what I stupid way to go—I planted my free hand over the kid’s mouth, willing him to keep it down. Bleary brown eyes focused hazily on my face and I pressed my finger to my lips. He was going to stay quiet or I swore to _god_ —

The heavy booted footsteps swerved, then, coming right up to the counter. The cop tapped the little service bell, leaning on the counter with a creak of old wood. I looked straight up and saw the tips of gloved fingers, curled around the edge of the counter over my head. 

“Can I help you, sir?” the pharmacy man asked. He hadn’t moved an inch, and from what little I could see of his face he was as stoic as ever.

“…We’re looking for a pair of kids,” the cop said. “Wrecked a car on the highway and took off. You haven’t seen them around, have you?”

I twitched, squeezing my eyes closed as the cop presumably handed over a tablet with our faces on it, probably snapped from a traffic cam. 

There was a long, dragging moment of silence as the pharmacy man studied the photo. He was looking at it for so long that I could have sworn I was going to drown in my own sweat. I was getting more convinced by the moment that he was going to sell us out, until, finally…

“Hm. Can’t say I have. Been an awful slow day, you know.”

“…Well. If you do, call this number. These kids are dangerous.”

Yeah, _sure_ , buddy. Dangerous… pff. As if. The only person I was ever a danger to was myself. My father’s reputation, despite the massive size of his ego, did not count. I wouldn’t have crashed the car on the highway if my parents hadn’t signed the unwind order in the first place, so who was really to blame?

…Which, okay, in hindsight doesn’t sound that great, either. You’re going to find a lot of moments like that in this story. What can I say? It’s the deviant little shit in me. I’m not here to argue that I’m a good person. All I’m here to do is make a pitch that I was worth something, that my life, as worthless and meaningless as it seemed from the outside, was worth living. I am human, therefore the story I have to tell _means something_. No matter how many mistakes I made or how many rules I broke.

…This isn’t to say that I didn’t deserve the heart attack the pharmacy man gave me when, just as the officer was about to turn away and head back out of the shop, he piped up and asked the man about a cold sore on his lip.

“That’s not your concern,” the cop said, and I could imagine him staring down at the pharmacy man. In my imagination he had a huge handlebar mustache that barely hid the cold sore in question, a pair of aviators complete with a reflection of the pharmacy man that looked like a fly caught in a trap perched on his nose. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I have a few different balms that might help,” the pharmacy man said with a shrug. “If it’s a recurring issue you might find better use from an anti-viral cream rather than a—”

“It happens every few months,” the cop snapped, his disdain bleeding through the air of professionalism he’d upheld thus far. “Does that help your diagnosis, pharmacist?”

God, could the pharmacy man just let the cop _leave already_?! I screamed internally as he offered his professional opinion on cold-sore creams, my breath coming shorter and shorter in my chest. When the pharmacy man leaned over us to pluck a tin from the little shelf just beside the counter, nearly tripping over me in the process, I saw my life flash before my eyes. There was some shuffling, an exchange of money, the cash register opening and closing. Then, all at once, the cop’s boots marched back across the shop. The bell above the door rang once more, and then… he was gone.

I wheezed a sigh. _God_ , my nerves were jangled. I then flinched as something moved beneath my hand. 

It was violin boy, who I realized belatedly that I was still holding onto. “Sorry,” I said, letting go. 

“Whuzzgoin’ on?” he asked. His eyes were looking sharper now, but not by much, and the clarity was offset by the way his tongue slurred the words.

“You had a seizure,” Felicity said on his other side, all fake professional. His hazy eyes slid over to her. I, meanwhile, went to push myself to my feet—she could playact like a doctor all she wanted, I was getting out of here.

Or I planned to, up until the pharmacy man spoke up. “They’ll be watching the traffic cams for a while yet,” he said. He’d picked up his book again and was flipping through it toward his bookmark, looking entirely uninterested in our fate.

I snorted. “Thanks, grandpa. Any other fun facts you’d like to tell us?”

“You know, a little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss,” he said. 

His tone wasn’t sharp, but I still felt the words like a knife in the gut. It was thanks to this man that I was still free to walk around and sass to my heart’s content. For a good ten minutes this man was the only thing that stood—or sat, kinda—between me and a harvest camp. My issues with authority could sit this one out for a hot second.

“…Sorry,” I said again, the second time in less than three minutes. I glared preemptively at Felicity just in case she decided to hassle me about my manners, but she was engrossed in cross-examining violin boy’s head, so I turned back to pharmacy man, taking a deep breath as I did. “Thank you,” I said, avoiding his eyes in favor of staring at the name badge on his collar—Pascal, it said. 

“…You’re trouble,” he said, with a sigh. 

I bit my tongue against the retort that wanted to come out, waiting for him to go on. 

He did, after a moment, looking at me with a seriousness that made me want to shrink into myself. “…But I suppose you can stay today, so long as you’re gone tomorrow morning. Once you leave you can never come back—I won’t be able to save you from the cops if they come sniffing again. Do you understand?”

I nodded, my mouth dry as the reality settled in my bones. I was a fugitive now—I owed this man more than I could ever repay him. Pascal, the man who saved my life as I knew it. 

I promised myself I wouldn’t forget that name, and I never have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure when the next chapter will be out, but in the meantime feel free to let me know what you think Monty's story will be like!

**Author's Note:**

> Some things you might need to know if you haven’t read Unwind:
> 
> 1) Umber/Sienna. Umber means black and sienna means white, as in black and white skin tones.
> 
> 2) Akron AWOL. The first main character who is introduced in Unwind. Monty’s story in this fic is set before the infamous Akron AWOL incident occurs. 
> 
> 3) Sophie. Sophie is my absolute favorite character in anything ever, this little old lady who made some mistakes earlier in her life that she’s trying to atone for. She is the bastard grandma to all AWOLs.
> 
> 4) AWOLs. The term for runaway unwinds.
> 
> 5) Unwinds. Teenagers under the age of 18 who are going to be unwound.
> 
> 6) Unwinding. A surgical practice wherein a body is completely taken apart so that the parts may be used to heal/help people. The procedure itself is called harvesting. It technically keeps every part of an unwind alive (technically it’s like 99.44%). The procedure came into practice when abortion was banned after the second civil war. It allows parents to retroactively abort a child, essentially.
> 
> 7) Storking. Because babies can’t be aborted and orphanages are at capacity, lawmakers needed a way to allow parents to give up their children to good homes instead of leaving them in dumpsters. The idea is that new parents can leave a baby at any doorstep and the baby is automatically under the guardianship of the family who lives there. Like the stork, dropping off babies. Thus, storking. In this fic it was just becomming common practice.
> 
> 8) Tranq bullets. Exactly as they sound, these are tranquilizer rounds fired from a gun. They knock you out pretty much instantly. Used by the National Juvenile Authority in the Unwind books, and by the cops here.
> 
> 9) National Juvenile Authority. A division of the police force specifically created to deal with runaway unwinds and disruptive teenagers. Not yet a thing at the time of Monty’s story.


End file.
